Presidential History

I've loved going to Presidential Libraries for many years now, and I've seen about 14 of them.  Presidential homes are also high on that list, and this trip provided an opportunity to see two libraries and one residence.

Campobello was the vacation home of FDR until he got polio in 1921; it was a place for family and friends, rather than official visitors. It's in New Brunswick, Canada, but administered by both the US and Canada, and is only accessible through the US most of the year. So I came through Customs into the US after two months in Canada, and the next morning I went back!

What a beautiful place it is. The gardens were amazing, kind of like what I loved about the Pacific Northwest. The climate is similar, so I suppose it wasn't so surprising. And the house itself is beautiful.  One of the highlights there is a program they have called Tea with Eleanor. It is limited to 40 guests each sitting, and the guests are treated to Eleanor Roosevelt's favorite tea (with cream) and ginger cookies while the docents tell stories about Eleanor's time there. It was fun to see the people who worked there arrive at the house as we were waiting to get in. As they walked down the path, they would repeat some of her favorite quotes, such as "A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water." It was a grand place to wander for several hours.

 

Gardens

Campobello

More beautiful gardens -- especially the dahlias. 

View from the living room.

Tea!

The John F. Kennedy library has been high on my list, but I have not been fortunate enough to be in the New England area for many years. This trip made it possible to finally see it and cross it off my list. The setting is beautiful, on a point of land in Boston Harbor, looking across the water at the city. It's green all around, and there are paths down to the water and a dock. The park is scattered with picnic tables among the trees; several other museums are nearby.

Although Kennedy was only president for three years, there were plenty of exhibits and they were all pertinent to his presidency. One that I found particularly amusing was clips of video from Jackie Kennedy's television tour of the White House; I remember watching that live on TV.  As a matter of fact, the tour of this library was a trip back to my late teen years! The most impressive part of the building was the lobby at the end, with the windows soaring many feet into the sky. 

Kennedy's Oval Office

Exhibits through the hallway

The Lobby at the end. 

As I was driving to Pennsylvania to visit my sister, I pulled off the highway to get gas and to check the map to see where I was.  (This is why I like paper maps so much, you get to see what's nearby.) Lo and behold, the FDR Library was just 25 miles from where I was, and  not very far out of the way. So I called Nancy, told her I would be a little late, and took off for Hyde Park.

The library and the FDR home are in the same park, but you can only visit the home on a tour. I arrived at 1:20 PM and the next tour was at 1:30 with spots still available. How lucky can you get?! It was a grand house, with typical 1920's and 30's furnishings, and the grounds were huge. The stories of FDR working to overcome his disability were heartwrenching – trying to walk to the end of the long drive and having to be carried back to the house because he simply was not able to return on his own, or pulling himself from the first to the second floor on a dumbwaiter – there was no electric elevator and he had to do the pulling alone.  Besides being a great president (in my opinion) he was quite an amazing man.

 

FDR Home, Hyde Park

Dining Room, note the kids table in the window!

Living Room

Bedroom

Grounds at the back

FDR's desk in the Oval Office

The library was full of all sorts of memorabilia that was fun to see, but I had to kind of hurry through it -- I still had a 2 hour drive to my sister's house. But all through the museum I kept thinking about a conversation I had with my father shortly before he died. We were talking politics, and I asked him if he had ever voted for a Democrat for president before Obama – he said that yes, he had voted for Roosevelt's fourth term!